


Past is Prologue

by PsychoMantis



Category: Outlast (Video Games), Outlast: Whistleblower - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Violence, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Slash, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4353194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychoMantis/pseuds/PsychoMantis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Miles and Waylon, Mount Massive is now solidly in the past.<br/>Theoretically.<br/>Waylon, however, has been left with nothing: no family,. no friends, and no hope for a future. There’s only one person he can think of to reach out to, and it’s the one person he feels has every right to want to leave (another) knife in his gut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Getting to Know You

In the end, it was Waylon himself who was most surprised that he had sent an e-mail- that he had sent any e-mail at all- to Miles Upshur.

Miles Upshur, of all people: the man whose life he’d essentially condemned the first time he’d e-mailed him.

Miles Upshur, who for god-knows-what reason, had the same goddamn e-mail address as he had months before. Waylon distracted himself as he typed by counting all the ways Miles’ e-mail was incredibly impractical, especially after the footage from Mount Massive had been all over every news station in just about every major country. It would be that much simpler for Murkoff to hunt him down.

Waylon punched the “send” button and shut his laptop with a little too much force, considering whether or not to message him again and suggest he change his e-mail address. Then again, he didn’t really expect Upshur to even read the message, much less take his advice.

Waylon pulled his knees up to chest on the creaking hotel bed and buried his head in his arms.

“Why did I do that?” he said quietly to the empty room.

The truth was that he just didn’t have anyone else to turn to. Miles was his one remaining link to the rest of the world, the closes thing to a friend he had, and possibly the only other human alive who knew about the horror that swam behind his closed eyes every night.

Without so much as the specter of Upshur in his life, Waylon was totally adrift. He was terrified of the inevitability of Miles cutting off that frail connection forever, but it couldn’t change that Waylon needed to take that chance. He’d had to send that message; there was no other choice.

The only alternative was uncertainty and a hollow darkness that threatened to swallow him whole.

Murkoff had made sure to tear what had remained of his life to shreds, after all.

–

It was close to a damn miracle that Miles noticed the e-mail in his inbox. After he’d sold the Mount Massive story, he’d become an overnight goddamn sensation.

Messages, congratulations, job offers, half-assed “tips” for mysteries and corruptions a fucking ten year old could figure out- they flooded his account by the hundreds every day.

There was a time in his life where that would’ve heralded a new beginning for him, a real benchmark of success. He should have been excited, or proud, something.

He wasn’t though. Every time a news station contacted him with questions, wanting – impossibly- for more detail, more stories, more of his personal hell than even the videos he’d sold could provide, he felt unaccountably sick to his stomach.

He had overnight renown, been heralded in some circles as “the most intrepid investigative reporter alive”, to say nothing of the absolutely unbelievable amount of money he’d gained. None of it provided Miles even a quarter of the satisfaction that a bottle of whiskey could. He found himself turning to the whiskey more and more often as the days wore on.

So now he checked his e-mail, sneered at the contents, and got hammered every day.

The e-mail was curiously titled “im sorry upshur im so sorry”, and there was no way in hell he could resist looking at it. Usually his messages weren’t so pathetic sounding. He clicked it, expecting some kind of chain-scam.

_“Dear Mr. Upshur,  
I assure you, I feel pretty terrible writing you this. I certainly understand if you don’t want to speak to me, and if you delete this as soon as you realize who I am. I hope you’ll at least be curious enough to hear me out._

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything that happened._

_But I should also say thank you, because if you’d never showed up there’s a good chance I’d be dead, or worse than dead._

_I wish there was something I could say about justice, and getting what they deserve, but to be honest I don’t care about any of that anymore. I guess we both know what all that idealistic bullshit cost us in the end._

_I’m glad you made it, anyway. I’m glad you’re not dead. Maybe you have a chance at something better now._

_Well, I guess I just wanted to know that you’re still out there. To say something to you. It would have felt too strange to just say “hello”._

_I’m so, so sorry._

_Please, talk to me._

_Say anything at all.  
\- Park”_

Miles made it to the end of the letter before his vision started to swim and an angry, painful buzzing started in his ears.

He splayed his hands out in front of him, losing the details in a haze of grey smoke. His breathing came in ragged gasps as he tried to hang on to himself, tried to push out the pounding, too-tight feeling of the Walrider in his head.

He could only watch, vision flickering, as a few droplets of blood dripped down his lip and onto his keyboard before he blacked out.

–

It took two hours for Miles to come-to. He felt as though it took less and less time to recover from those little attacks, but it was still scary as hell. It was one of many reasons the liquor helped; when he was drunk, he didn’t feel anything strongly enough to…wake the Walrider up, or whatever it was that happened. He wasn’t too clear on how it worked.

The only thing he knew for sure, thanks to the terrified screams of Dr. Wernicke shortly before being eviscerated, was that he was, in fact, the Walrider’s new host.

Miles lifted his head from where it rested on his laptop and wiped off what he could of the dried blood. The last thing he remembered was reading something- what had he been reading?

He glanced up at the screen, and like a fist to the stomach he remembered.

That little fucker Park.

The man who’d dragged him down into that fucking mess. That messianic fucking shit-stirrer who got into bed with the devil and then squealed like a bitch when he saw the horns.

Miles had been angry for months at a ghost, the flimsy concept of Waylon Park. Now though, despite his vitriolic inner monologue, he didn’t feel especially angry. He just felt blank, empty at the reality of the man.

He hadn’t even known Park’s name until after the NDA’s had been signed and they’d both been hastily inducted into a witness protection program. Eventually, Miles’ lawyers had mentioned him though: Waylon Park, one of precious few survivors of the Mount Massive debacle and possibly the only other one who was fit to live outside of a treatment facility ever again. A programmer who’d been collared by Murkoff and tortured for sending out a tip about what was happening.

That part, Miles was well acquainted with.

He stormed off into his small living room, leaving Park’s e-mail to gently illuminate his dark bedroom.

There were a few bottles of whiskey left there; Miles had every intention to drown out every meager “sorry” Park could possibly throw at him.

–

After about eight shots, Miles felt a hell of a lot less uncharitable towards Park’s message. In fact, after doddering back to his desk and re-reading the letter he felt a little sympathetic, almost. It was that undertone of desperation that made Miles reply.

_Park,_  
Don’t calk me ‘Mr Upshur, ffs my n ame is miLes  
\- MILES 

He punched the “enter” button and flopped onto his bed with a heavy sigh. It was impossible to tell if he felt any better or worse. He fell asleep wondering.

–

Miles’ dreams that night were hazy replays of Mount Massive, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual though, were the images he didn’t clearly remember, though he was certain somewhere deep down that they were things he’d seen, had experienced

There was a man, clutching a knife and screaming before he was lifted into the air and torn to bloody chunks. And the small form of another man, huddled and bleeding, a man he’d watched stumble out the door. A man he could only recall through a shroud of feral anger and fierce protection, though he had no idea why.

He woke in the middle of the night, shouting incoherently just as his incorporeal self pushed a familiar looking Jeep through the gates of the asylum. 

–

Miles shuffled back into his apartment later that morning. His infrequent breakfast trips to the nearby coffee-shop were just about the only excursions he made to the outside world, aside from purchasing necessities.

He did his best to ignore the polite overtures of the baristas there. He felt like he wasn’t fit to interact with them; he felt too undomesticated, like the truth of his life was written on his face.

He’d forgotten to shut his laptop down and was mildly surprised to see a reply from Park.

_Miles,  
Oh. Well. I suppose you can call me Waylon, if you like. Although I get the impression you may be a little inebriated at the moment._

_Thank you for replying._

_I didn’t actually expect this. I don’t know what to say._

_\- Waylon Park_

Now Miles was irritated.

_Waylon,  
So what exactly was the fucking point of messaging me in the first place?_

_\- i’m not signing these anymore you know who i am_

This time, the reply came only 30 minutes later as Miles was straining his patience to politely decline yet another interview.

_Mr. Miles Upshur,_

_I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t know who else to talk to. To tell you the truth, I don’t have anyone else to talk to._

_I think I’ll go crazy if I have to be holed up here, alone, another week.  
The doctor told me to try and meet new people, but I can’t. I can’t even look at other people without…well, it doesn’t matter. Besides, I’ve never really met you, so technically I’m still taking his advice._

_I suppose I’ll go ahead and, well, ask you how you’re doing. That’s how meeting people is supposed to go, after all._

_So._

_How are you, Miles?_

_\- Park_

Miles rolled his eyes.

_It’s MILES. Just Miles. And I’m just fuckin peachy._

_I should warn you though if you’re hunting for a new therapist or some bullshit youre shit out of luck. Kinda funny that youre worried about going crazy NOW though. Figured that ship already sailed._

_P.S. you stole my fuckin jeep by the way you owe me a coffee or something for that shit_

Miles slammed the enter key and stared hard at the screen.

He wanted to hate Waylon, he really did. Every fiber of his being resented the man, wanted to hold him personally accountable for every goddamn minute he’d spend inside that hellhole.

Rationally, though, it wasn’t really all Waylon’s fault, was it? Miles had built his entire reputation on being a media pot-stirrer; the one guy who’d do just about anything to get to the heart of a story.

He’d landed himself smack in the middle of Afghanistan twice before and subsequently gotten himself canned from every salary position he’d ever held in journalism. Was it really that much of a surprise that when it came time to bust Murkoff wide open, he’d be the guy who got contacted?

_Miles,  
That was your car? Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I’d return it to you, but I have no idea what happened to it after I went to the police. I’m sorry._

_\- Waylon_

It was just because he felt bad for Waylon, he told himself. It was because he felt bad, and he was bored, and definitely not because he was lonely and starting to feel really afraid of the things he saw when he tried to sleep and the way his head buzzed and his hands shook with an invisible monster.

_Well like I said you owe me Waylon. I don’t know where youre at but theres a decent coffee shop nearby here if you ever find yourself in New York for whatever fuckin reason._

He hit send before he could give himself enough time to regret the invitation. By the time Waylon replied, Miles had convinced himself that he’d managed to out-awkward the other man somehow.

_Miles,  
Forgive me, but was that an invitation? Or some form of elaborate insult I have yet to grasp? It’s hard to tell through writing. I’ve been kind of expecting you to tell me to fuck off or something this entire time._

_I can get there by Friday I think, assuming all travel plans remain as scheduled. If there’s anything I’ve got right now, it’s time after all. If you were serious._

_\- Waylon_

Couldn’t make this easy on me, Miles thought. Had to make me spell shit out.

He punched his response in and hit send without even checking the message for legibility.

_I could still tell you to fuck off if thatd make you happy. But yeah im just swimming in free time too so honestly whenever works for me. Just shoot me an email or text or whatever if/when you show up ok._

He’d included his number in an attachment, feeling his stomach drop in a strange combination of anticipation and regret as soon as the message was sent and irretrievable. The feeling that he’d made some sort of monstrous mistake came on the tail of a feeling that was eerily similar to excitement.

Friday, huh? He glanced at the calendar on his laptop; it was Wednesday. He felt panicky, nervous, and strangely light. It was the first time in a long time he’d had something to look forward to. The interruption of his interminable days of alcohol and silence was as exhilarating as it was intrusive.

He didn’t realize just how confusing his emotions had gotten until he saw the blood drops on the tops of his hands.

“Not you again,” he muttered.

There was just enough time to drag himself through the thickening fog around him to the bed, before the blackness took him.

–

It was dry and overcast when Waylon stepped out of the train station, the atmosphere heavy with the threat of a storm. It made the noise of the city seem more ominous, like he was trespassing.

He felt the impulse to turn around, hide in the station bathroom and maybe take the next train back to Colorado. Maybe pretend none of this had happened.

He’d already texted Miles about his imminent arrival though, and the last thing he wanted to do was bring even more disorder to the man’s life.

Waylon’s noble intentions made no difference to the cold fear clutching at his stomach; there were so many people, too much noise. He felt as though he were seconds away from just screaming, or bursting into tears; he was certain that he was moments away from one of those faceless people grabbing him from behind and dragging him away somewhere. Somewhere awful.

Waylon’s hands shook while he tried to type another message. _Hey, guess I’m here at Penn station. Any directions you can give me?_

He walked in looping circles, trying to keep as far from the tight crowds of people as he could. He startled and nearly slapped someone with his heavy rucksack when his cell phone chimed its reply.

_Just walk straight from the station take a right at the big fuckin purse ad. Ask someone like a fuckin hot dog vendor if you get lost but seriously theres no reason for you to get lost. I picked that coffee place specifically for its proximity to the station_

The thought of asking for directions- making eye contact, having to speak with a stranger- made Waylon taste bile in the back of his throat. He could see the ad Miles had mentioned up ahead; he’d take his chances. He pushed his glasses up his nose and set off.

The coffee shop was pretty unremarkable, if a sight cleaner than he’d been expecting. He fell into a chair at an unoccupied table and held his head in his hands to try and prevent hyperventilating.

“Somehow, I get the feeling you must be Waylon.”

Waylon’s head snapped up at the voice, ready to run. There was a man standing across the table from him; tall, a little on the unshaven side, with a lopsided haircut that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a punk show. He wore a beat-up leather jacket and dangled an unlit cigarette from his lips.

“Miles?”

He didn’t deny it, which was as good as a ‘yes’.

Miles cocked his head, but didn’t respond. “You don’t look so good.”

“I’m a little-“Waylon swallowed thickly and glanced around like he was looking for the emergency exit. “It’s a bit much?”

Miles followed Waylon’s gaze and furrowed his brows. “The coffee shop?”

Waylon gestured expansively. “The whole-the whole thing. The city.”

Miles sat down across from him and fiddled with his cigarette. He looked expectant, like he was waiting for Waylon to elaborate.

“I, uh, haven’t been…out. Recently.”

Miles blinked. “Out where?”

“Out of my hotel room. Anywhere.”

The sound of Miles’ sudden laughter struck Waylon as at least a little inappropriate.

“What’s so funny?”

Miles tried to stop, but could only contain himself to a hoarse wheezing sound. “Shit, sorry. That just struck me fuckin’ funny is all. Your first trip to the outside world in who-knows-how-long, and you decide to go to New York City to meet the person who probably hates you most.”

Waylon felt dizzy, which was the only reason he didn’t get up to leave. “Look, maybe I should go.”

Miles slapped the table in front of him and shook his head, still smiling. “Sorry, sorry, not a great joke. Please, stick around; this is already the most I’ve laughed in ages.”

“I’d prefer it wasn’t at my expense.”

“It’s not, promise. Not like I’ve been the social butterfly either, you know.”

There was a brief silence while Waylon chewed his thumb and stared resolutely at Miles’ jacket collar. “So. The person who hates me the most?”

“Look, I don’t actually hate you.”

“You don’t?”

“Not really, no. I don’t generally break my voluntary hermitage to have tea and scones with my most hated enemies.”

Waylon let out the breath he’d been holding. He wanted to maybe ask a little more about what Miles meant by “not really” but the answer he’d received was already a hundred times more reasonable than he deserved, and he didn’t intend to push his luck.

“Speaking of,” Miles continued, “we should actually do that. Get coffee, I mean.”

Waylon blanched and fished around his head for some sort of polite excuse. Conversing with Miles was frightening enough; he didn’t feel like extending his capabilities any farther that day. Miles held a hand up in an attempt to stop Waylon before he started.

“Relax, I’ll order. You look like you’re going to puke. What do you want?”

“Just, uh, you know. Coffee. Whatever you’re getting is fine.”

Miles rolled his eyes and walked over to the counter to order. When he sat back down, he slid a steaming cardboard cup towards Waylon that smelled faintly of pumpkin.

Waylon swirled his coffee around experimentally, trying to force himself to look up and look Miles in the face. Instead, he found himself staring at where Miles’ hands gripped the cup, scarred with two gnarled stumps where fingers had once been. The hands tensed and Waylon’s attention drifted upward, where Miles was glaring at his hands, too.

Miles didn’t look up. “What.”

“Does it…is it hard to use your hands like that?” Waylon said.

“Yes, actually,” Miles said through his teeth, “the loss of digits will affect the dexterity of your hands during many common activities, such as typing or handling utensils.”

His voice had the rehearsed quality of a man forced to endure that same speech an interminable amount of times. Waylon figured that probably wasn’t far from the truth.

“They’re also excellent at scaring the hell out of little kids,” Miles added, snorting in amusement.

The silence was buzzing in Waylon’s ears, making it hard to concentrate. His face felt hot and he wished desperately that he hadn’t opened his mouth; it was a stupid thing to say.

Miles cleared his throat, finally drawing Waylon’s attention back up from the table. “So. What have you been doing with yourself and your shiny new second chance at life?”

The question felt like it had hit Waylon in the sternum and he searched Miles’ dour expression for some explanation. None came.

Waylon’s voice was a dry whisper. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Miles shrugged, still staring. He was startled out of his bitter impassivity by the way Waylon’s shoulders broke into a shudder, followed by quiet, bubbling laughter.

“That’s pathetic, isn’t it?” Waylon said with an unsettling chuckle. His eyes were glittering and wide, locked onto Miles’ unflinchingly despite the way his hands and mouth had begun to tremble. “I gave up everything, and- I’ll never even see the kids again, and I- there’s just nothing.”

Miles rubbed his arm and looked away from Waylon. It may have been a haphazard jumble of words, but it made his stomach clench with regret. He hadn’t expected to feel anything but calm satisfaction at inflicting some measure of hurt on the sad little man in front of him. Now he felt like a petty jackass.

Waylon had dropped his head into his heads and shook it back and forth, as though he could clear the unhappiness away like cobwebs.

“Sorry, I-“ Miles tried.

“I’m sorry about that,” Waylon interrupted, cleaning his glasses on the tail of his shirt, “don’t know what came over me. Sorry.”

Miles smiled and nodded to the barista who had been looking over to them with unmasked concern. He hoped she wouldn’t come over to check on them and potentially set Waylon off again.

Miles cleared his throat. “Hey, c’mon. Let’s get out of here, get some air.”

Waylon looked up from his hands with the face of a terrified deer. He nodded in a way that suggested he didn’t actually understand what Miles had said.

Miles stood and held the door open, gesturing for Waylon to follow.

–

The sky had darkened considerably and thunder rumbled faintly in the distance.

Miles hung back outside the entrance of the coffee shop to light his cigarette, watching Waylon hobble ahead. He was short and looked frail, despite what must have once been a stocky build. His hair was cut like a desk-job professional, though it had grown out and now hung over his eyes. He had an exaggerated sort of limp, as though he were unsteady on his right leg.

Miles loped over to him, falling in to step and watching Waylon take in the sights. “What’s up with your leg?”

Waylon’s face fell and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Broke it. You know, at, uh, Mount Massive.”

“Shouldn’t it have healed by now?”

Waylon stooped to pull up his pant leg, looking away as he exposed the shining metal complexities of his prosthetic leg.

Miles twisted and chewed on the end of his cigarette. “Oh.”

“The doctors did what they could, but in the end I guess it was too…mangled to screw back together.”

Miles nodded absently, looking away as Waylon covered his prosthetic. “That sucks.”

Waylon froze, and for a second Miles imagined he must have been angry.

Waylon just chuckled, though the humor didn’t extend to his eyes.

They walked in silence for a bit, with Miles stealing sidelong glances at his companion and looking away before they could make eye contact.

“Feels like a long time ago, to me,” Waylon said quietly.

Miles took a long drag of his cigarette and watched as the small man craned his neck up at the incredible height of the buildings. The blue of dusk was creeping into the skyline, and one-by-one, lights flickered to life in windows and signs.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Only six months and two weeks ago.”

Miles arched an eyebrow. “You been keepin’ close track of that shit?”

Waylon shrugged.

Miles shrugged in return and smiled sadly. “That can’t be healthy.”

“It’s one of many potentially maladaptive habits I haven’t bothered to run by my therapist.”

“Oh? Didn’t peg you as the rebellious type.”

Waylon shot him a look that was partial amusement and disbelief. “I have my moments. Like tipping a journalist off to Murkoff’s crimes against humanity and being tortured for the indiscretion.”

Miles blinked. “Well, when you put it that way.”

Waylon laughed, and it sounded genuine for the first time. They walked along, Waylon shuffling and stumbling every few feet since he had a habit of looking everywhere but where he was walking. Despite his laughter, he still seemed tense, flinching whenever someone bumped past him.

“So…what did you do, uh, before?” Waylon asked.

“Same thing I was doing there,” Miles said around his cigarette, “reporting. I take you were probably aware of that, given how you e-mailed me a written fuckin’ invitation.”

Waylon winced and looked at the ground. “I-I-sorry.”

Miles gritted his teeth, more frustrated with himself than with Waylon’s sputtering. “What about you?”

“Waylon glanced up. “Me?”

“Yes, you. What did you use to do?”

“Oh. Uh, programming. Software programming, mostly. Did a lot of independent consulting.”

“You mentioned kids. You got a family?”

Waylon’s face darkened and he stared resolutely away. “ _Had_ a family.”

Miles decided not to press the issue. Shortly after that, the vivid lights of the city began to flicker and glisten with the first few drops of rain.

“Oh, shit,” Miles muttered, “maybe we should call this a night.”

“Yeah, it’s getting dark, too,” Waylon said, a tremble having crept into his voice. 

Out of nowhere, Waylon dropped his bag and covered his mouth. "Oh, fuck!"

Miles startled and stopped to stare at him. “What?”

“Shit, shit…I knew this was a bad idea, knew I’d screw something up,” Waylon said, tugging at his hair.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was so nervous, about coming here, about everything- I don’t, I didn’t even think of finding a place to stay- I mean, Dr. Grant was the one who got me the hotel I’d been living in and I didn’t-“

“What, so you need like, a hotel or something?”

Waylon looked at him wide-eyed, the rain starting to plaster his hair to his forehead. “Maybe, maybe I c-can just catch a train back to Colorado-“

“Don’t be stupid, there aren’t any cross-country fuckin’ trains running at this hour. Just calm down-“

Waylon’s gibbering was even louder. “If I just- just go to some random hotel, I won’t know if it’s safe, someone could break in, Murkoff could track me there-“

“Whoa, Waylon-“

“- therapist was right, I can’t do anything on my own! I didn’t even tell him about this and now-“

“Waylon!”

Waylon flinched and crossed his arms in front of himself in some pathetic attempt at self-defense.

Miles let out a long sigh. “Why don’t you just come and stay at my place?”

They stood facing each other for a long beat, occasional passers-by threading between them as the rain started to shimmer on their clothing.

Miles ran a hand through his damp hair and forced a grin. “It’ll be like a little Mount Massive survivor’s reunion.”

Waylon pressed two fingers to his neck, convinced he was about to have a heart attack. He searched Miles’ face, illuminated by the orange glow of his cigarette, for some hint of malice or anger. The man mostly just looked tired. Maybe a little concerned.

“A-are you sure?”

Miles nodded and tossed his head, taking a few steps in the direction of his apartment. “C’mon.”

Waylon stumbled after him, hands shoved into his pockets so Miles wouldn’t see the way they shook.


	2. B-Movies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waylon is awkward as hell staying at Miles' place. Miles isn't a whole lot better and deals with things the only way he knows how: with beer.

The sense of impending doom hadn’t left Waylon by the time  
they were darting into the apartment complex lobby, shaking the rain from their  
hair.

Miles lead him through the shabby building, worn-down wood paneling and exposed plaster in huge chunks every few feet. He kept expecting Miles to glare, or sneer, or turn around and announce Waylon’s imminent death. All Miles actually did was occasionally look back at him and nod.

They stopped at a gouged door on the second floor. “Well, here we are.”

Waylon stood just outside the doorjamb, tugging at the sleeves of his jacked while Miles unlocked the door.

Miles stood inside the apartment and held the door open. “You uh…you coming in?”

“Oh! Sorry.” Waylon scrambled inside, catching his leg on the floor and falling forward.

Miles grabbed the collar of his jacked to keep him upright.

“Sorry again,” Waylon said quietly.

Miles smiled wearily and rolled his eyes, locking the door behind them. “Welcome. Please excuse any mess; I wasn’t exactly expecting company.”

“Miles, if this is too much trouble I’m sure I can-“

He gave Waylon a little push towards the couch. “It’s no trouble, seriously, cross my heart. Please relax.”

“Sorry-“

Miles stared at him, brows furrowed, before he shook his head and left the room down a small corridor, gesturing for Waylon to follow.

“Here’s the kitchen- the bathroom’s just through that door over there, and my room is the doorway behind the couch,” Miles said, pointing in all the appropriately demonstrative locations. 

“Feel free to make use of anything you need, except preferably my bedroom, because there’s nothing you’d really need in there and it’d be weird.”

Waylon nodded along, forcing a smile when Miles turned to face him. The place seemed alright, certainly a sight cleaner than the building it was in, but the details were lost on Waylon.

 _God, he’s talking fast_ , Waylon thought. _Is that normal?_ _Is this normal?_

Waylon allowed that it was possible Miles was just acting nervous, but Miles didn’t seem like a person who got nervous. He had the quality of someone who was incapable of feeling fear anymore, as though he’d burned out in the asylum and couldn’t be bothered with it.

His mind reeled with possibilities- that this whole offer was a sick game before Miles went ahead and did something terrible; took his revenge.

Waylon knew some of what Miles had dealt with- it had been on the news, and how many times had he tried to get the sound of scissors cutting through flesh and bone out of his head ever since- but he couldn’t account for what that might have done to Miles. What it might have done to Miles’ head. 

For all he knew, Miles had wound up with a taste for human flesh, or the deep-seated need to cut people up with a rotary saw, or-

“Waylon, you okay there? Looking a little green.”

Waylon jumped and shielded his face with his arms, unable to suppress a slight trembling throughout his limbs.

Miles didn’t _look_ homicidal, or even angry. He just looked confused.

He held his hands up and took a step back, away from Waylon. “Not gonna hurt you, man.”

Waylon took a few deep breaths and let his arms fall to his sides, cracking another sad little smile. “S-Sorry.”

“You know, so far you’ve apologized for tripping, standing still, flinching, and apologizing- just a heads up, you really don’t have to do it every ten seconds.”

“…sorry.”

Miles blinked and burst into laughter, sagging against his kitchen counter.

Waylon pulled at the frayed edges of his sleeves while Miles continued to laugh, eventually wiping his eyes and straightening up. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Miles said.

“A-are you angry with me?” Waylon asked. He had meant to sound calm, but his voice came out barely above a whisper. 

“Nope.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Miles sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Look, you oughta get some sleep. It’s getting late, it’s been a long day, and quite frankly you seem seriously fucking stressed out right now.”

Waylon flashed that anemic little smile again. “That sounds like a good idea.”

“You alright with crashing on the couch?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Cool. Like I said, use whatever you want, take whatever you need, _mi casa-su casa_ , etcetera.”

“Th-thanks- thank you, Miles.”

Miles stiffened a moment and waved his hand dismissively. “It’s nothing.”

He walked off before Waylon could say anything else, disappearing behind his bedroom door and re-emerging to throw an armful of blankets and pillows on the couch. He murmured a hasty “g’night” before the door closed behind him again.

Waylon wanted to relax a little now that he was relatively alone, but he couldn’t seem to. He spread the blanket across the couch, arranging another blanket over it and beneath the pillow, fussing with the creases until he admitted to himself that he was entirely adrift. 

The walls of the house around him seemed too close, too alien, and much too quiet. He wanted to clap his hands over his ears and shut out all that silence.

He tried to lay down and close his eyes. Maybe it could be that simple for him; maybe he could just…drift off to sleep. The same as anyone else. 

After a few minutes of the buzzing in his ears, all Waylon got for his trouble was the sensation that he was falling down through his own body, down through the floor. He jolted upright and toppled off the couch. 

“This is stupid,” Waylon whispered.

It definitely felt stupid, but after a whole day spent uprooting himself from the closet of a motel he’d been living in and coming face to face with a person who frightened him worse than Jeremy Blaire made him fairly vibrate with nerves.

It didn’t help that Miles was in the house, sleeping just a few feet away. He might be near a gun, or some other weapons, and he was quite possibly filled to the brim with his hatred for Waylon. 

Waylon got up and paced, taking the time to pay attention to the living room. It was alright, a little bland. It might have been downright nice, but there were cigarette holes all over much of the furniture and liquor bottles poked out of a half-dozen forgotten corners. 

He wandered into the kitchen and frowned at the proliferation of liquor bottles, not all of them empty, that seemed to stick out all over- in the sink, under the table, and wedged behind the radiator.

By the time Waylon found the half-drunk bottle of whiskey in the shower rack, he was similtanesously unsurprised and abjectly depressed. 

He slumped back down onto the couch, face-down against a pillow. _This is all my fault._

Miles might not have even been sober that day; how was he going to feel when he was sober? Was the liquor the only think preventing him from wrapping his mangled hands around Waylon’s throat?

Even his potentially inevitable death didn’t distract Waylon from the way all those empty bottles seemed to weigh down in his chest. 

Guild dragged him down into uneasy sleep.

\-- 

Miles charged down the plastic-wrapped hallways, past the rot and destruction at impossible speeds, vision shaking like a grainy camcorder.

Seconds ago, he’d gripped at his body as it was riddled full of bullets, tore desperately at the hot points of searing pain before a strange calm stole over him. He watched helplessly as the bullets seemed to push out of his flesh, pain cooling and subsiding until he couldn’t even feel his limbs. 

Then came darkness and horrible, rattling buzz in his ears. Even the screaming was drowned out by static, and the blood that exploded out of the bodies around him only registered as a vaguely cool sensation. 

_This must be what dying feels like_ , he thought. _Dying doesn’t feel so bad._

If he was dead though, why then did the sight of a man, hunched over and burying his knife into someone make Miles so goddamned angry? He shouldn’t have felt anything.

Miles had been through this scene before and he knew exactly what he was about to do. It always made him feel strangely light, as though there was something cheerful about the decision he’d made to kill this man. 

The scenery skipped and changed when realized that there was something familiar about the man being gutted. He tried to zoom in and get a better look at him as the other man was lifted and torn into a rain of viscera. 

The victim’s face blurred and reassembled into Waylon’s; cowering, horrified, and clutching his torn stomach closed. 

Everything flickered in flashes of black and white while a low screaming seemed to build up from nowhere and everywhere at once, getting louder by the moment.

Miles jumped awake, hurtling out of bed. The screaming was coming from outside his room. 

\--  


Miles burst through the doorway, looking ridiculous in a t-shirt and boxers while he brandished the pistol he kept by his bed.

“The fuck is going on?!”

Waylon was curled into a ball on the couch, pulling at his hair and rocking back and forth slightly. The screaming had stopped as soon as the bedroom door had banged open, but Waylon was making some kind of low, sobbing him instead.

“The fuck, Waylon! That was you?”

Waylon finally looked up, backlit by the bright early-morning sun. The misery in his eyes snapped into cold terror as he eventually locked his gaze on to Miles’ gun. Miles blinked, trying to catch his breath and followed Waylon’s eyes to the gun  in his hand.

Miles sighed and turned to put the gun back on his night stand. “The fuck is wrong with you? You know, plenty of people have nightmares without shrieking about it at nine in the goddamn morning!”

When he walked back into the living room Waylon was staring down at his hands while fat tears gathered in his eyes and slid down his cheeks. Waylon opened his mouth as though to speak, only to interrupt himself with a small, hiccupping sob.

“Aw jeez,” Miles muttered, scrubbing at his face. “Hang on.” 

Miles left Waylon and paced in his kitchen, patting the counters and sighing. He had no idea what to do; he’d lived alone long before Mount Massive and maybe he’d forgotten some of the finer points of human interaction. Maybe he could get away with just doing what he would normally do.

Miles came back into the room with two glasses of whiskey with ice. He handed one to Waylon and slumped silently beside him on the couch, taking long, slow sips.

Waylon sniffed at the glass and scrunched his nose in distaste. “Whiskey? Miles, it’s morning.”

“Yeah, and apparently a real shit morning for you. Just drink it; you’ll feel better.”

Waylon blinked at him with big, watery eyes, tears still sliding down his nose.

Miles patted Waylon stiffly on the shoulder and smirked. “C’mon, just give it a shot. Promise I won’t tell your therapist.”

“I’m not making a habit of this,” Waylon said warily.

“Never said you had to.”

Waylon shrugged and threw his glass back, drinking the whole thing in one go. Miles was halfway through his own drink and burst into laughter, sputtering liquid on himself.

“Jesus!” Miles laughed. “I didn’t mean ‘do your best impression of a frat boy’.”

Waylon grimaced and rubbed at his chest. “If you’re gonna go for it, might as well go all the way, I guess.”

They sat quietly while Miles finished his glass.

“So,” he said, getting up and gesturing to the kitchen, “how you feeling?”

“Okay, I think.”

Miles nodded and refilled their glasses. He grinned when he saw Waylon’s hesitant expression.

Miles brandished the glass. “Relax, I mixed in some cola for you; figured it’d make it easier for you. I can’t have you drinking me under the table in my own home.”

“Seriously doubt that would happen, but thank you.” Waylon took a sip and to his credit, didn’t make a face. 

Miles turned on the TV and slouched back. It flared to life and before he realized what was playing, began to drone out the news.

“-and in related stories, six months after the horrifying events at Mount Massive, Murkoff Industries is-“

The screen twitched and swam with images that Miles swore he knew better than his own childhood. He punched the remote, over and over until the screen and flickered through several dozen stations and landed safely on a shopping network.

Miles hadn’t been aware of just how tightly he’d gripped his glass until Waylon’s soft voice startled him out of his angry reverie.

“I-I-Miles, I-“

Miles downed his whiskey and stared at his hands, flexing his fingers and watching the scarred stumps twitch uselessly. “What.”

“I’m so sorry, Miles.”

“Yeah,I know. You’ve said something to that effect roughly every ten minutes for the last day.”

“I mean, I’m…really sorry, sorry about Mount Massive, sorry about the e-mail, sorry I dragged you into it, sorry I couldn’t have kept my mouth shut and just dealt with it, sorry for ruining-“

“Waylon.”

Waylon stopped abruptly, furrowing his brows and considering his drink intensely. Miles figured he was trying to hide the fact that he was crying again, and the way his breath came out raggedly gave him away.

Miles shook Waylon’s shoulder. “Look at me.”

Waylon turned obediently, looking up at him with his face streaming.

“Let it go, man. I’m not- I don’t-“ Miles stammered, unsurprised at the way he tripped over his own tongue. He’d been generous with his liquor intake on an empty stomach.

Waylon finished his own drink, still looking Miles in the eye like he was accepting death. Miles sighed.

“Ain’t your damned fault Waylon, okay?”

“But I-“

“Didn’t make any of my goddamned decisions for me, did you?”

Waylon was silent.

“No, y’didn’t,” Miles said, pointing at the air emphatically. “Y’didn’t make me go there, y’didn’t make me stay, certainly weren’t the one who cut off my fucking fingers- y’didn’t do a single thing to me. So please, stop waiting for me to punish you.”

Waylon sniffled and wiped at his face, looking at his empty glass as though it had just revealed some ultimate truth to him. They passed a few moments in silence while someone on the TV tried to sell them a blender.

Waylon stood up suddenly. “I’m-“

“Swear to God, if you say ‘sorry’ I’m gonna start screaming.”

“-gonna get us some more drinks, if that’s okay.”

Miles mouth twitched into a smile. “Oh. Yeah, sure.”

Waylon tottered off to the kitchen, bumping hard against the wall on his way over.

“Maybe dial it back a little, have a beer instead?” Miles called after him, wincing at the crashing sound that followed after.

\--  


 “Now this- this is real horror,” Miles drawled, swinging his beer bottle clumsily at the television.

On the screen, a skeleton suspended by wires dramatically pushed a woman into a subterranean well. The both of them laughed raucously at the eerie music accompanying the scene.

Pizza boxes and beer bottles littered the floor; Miles had given up on trying to drunkenly assemble a grilled cheese and decided that no good bender was complete without takeout.

Waylon had relaxed considerably, his conscience and nerves smoothed out by the remarkable quantities of alcohol he’d ingested. Though he was certain it probably wasn’t his proudest moment, and he was also certain he was definitely a “bad influence”, it was still gratifying to see the guy loosen up and laugh instead of jumping at shadows and crying. 

“Jeez, how much y’wanna bet she’s gonna run right into that hole?” Waylon slurred.

Miles grinned. “And approaching hole in 3…2…1…”

The woman in the movie screamed as she fell into a hole, and they fell over each other in another fit of hysterics.

Miles had worried that maybe watching several hours of bad horror movies might upset Waylon, call up some unpleasant memory or the other, but he’d taken to it with obvious enthusiasm. Hell, he’d even joined Miles in heckling the characters on screen.

The sun had begun to set, dappling the room and Waylon’s face with bright oranges and red. Miles caught himself staring, tipping his beer back and watching the way Waylon’s smile made him look years younger. Maybe that’s what he’d looked like before; younger, softer, without that stark streak of grey in his hair. 

The thing that surprised Miles the most though was how…okay he felt at that moment. Sure, he was blind drunk and that probably had something to do with it, but usually being drunk just made him feel numb, or slightly less angry. Now he was on the precipice of feeling genuinely kind of alright.

 _Huh._ Miles stared into the neck of his beer bottle and tried to remember the last time he’d spent time with another person, as friends. 

He couldn’t really recall. There were bars, professional contacts that were a little less-than-professional, and erstwhile coworkers he could shoot the shit with, but not many people he’d ever describe himself as comfortable with. 

He finished off his beer and smiled when Waylon tugged at his sleeve and pointed at the screen, where another skeleton pranced wildly on its’ strings across the landscape. 

Maybe it was just the proximity of another human being after so long, but Miles was willing to take what he could get.

\--  


Something heavy landed on Miles’ shoulder, startling him out of drowsy reverie. The room was dark, a flickering blue light from the TV as the only illumination.

Miles wiggled his shoulder. “Hmph…Way, buddy. Wake up.”

Waylon shot up, eyes unfocused and breathing heavy. “Wh-wha’s-“

“Just fell asleep on the couch s’all. Oughta…should get some sleep, proper like.”

Waylon nodded sedately while Miles stood up and stretched, looking away from where Waylon’s head had fallen against the arm of the couch. Miles nudged him again.

“Hey, uh, just a thought…why don’t ya try sleepin’-sleepin’ in my room tonight? Like, uh, like you know, you can put the couch cushions on the floor or somethin’.”

Waylon blinked up at him sleepily. “Yeah? You ‘kay with that?”

“Yeah, man, why not?” Miles grabbed one of the cushions and dragged it behind him, tossing it onto the floor at the foot of his bed.

Waylon stumbled in after him, threatening to knock over furniture with the two remaining cushions tucked under his arms. He collapsed onto it as soon as the cushions were assembled into what might have been considered a crude mattress.

“Y’alright there, Way?”

Waylon didn’t respond. Miles found a blanket and draped it over Waylon as he shifted in his sleep, not bothering to hide his smile.

\--

This time, when a pulse of fear so intense it wrenched his ribcage painfully woke Waylon, the impending scream died on his lips almost instantly.

He’d sat up and seen Miles, sleeping facedown in his pillow and snoring gently. It was enough to remind him that it had been a dream; that he wouldn’t die. Not right there and then, anyway. 

Summer thunder rumbled quietly, interspersed with flashes of light that briefly through the room into sharp relief. Every thunder-crack made Waylon’s heart strain against his chest; it was hard to resist the urge to curl up and whimper, but he didn’t want to wake Miles. Again.

Waylon tried to stand but the room spun dangerously, his head pounding a warning in his temples. He fell to his knees, hanging onto the footboard of Miles’ bed and watching him sleep while the dizzy spell passed.

Miles’ arm dangled from the edge of the bed, fingertips brushing a discarded beer bottled and sheets twisted up between his legs. 

It was strange to see Miles without his face screwed into some sardonic expression. Waylon had been tempted to assume that it hadn’t been an act- that Miles really was all sharp edge and bitter tongue, but he wasn’t sure anymore. In fact, the man seemed given to kindness, well-disguised in apathy. 

The steady rise and fall of the other man’s chest pulled Waylon from his reveries and began to lull him into a gradual sense of calm. He let himself fall back onto the cushions and close his eyes.

If he was going to die, at least he wasn’t going to die alone. That had to be worth something.


	3. Lucky Strikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Respites never last long.

“Is it much farther?”

Miles took a good, long drag of his cigarette. “Not much, no.”

Waylon tried to keep his focus on Miles without seeming too conspicuous about it. He walked tall and impassive beside him, as though he weren’t about to be swallowed up by the heaving mass of people all around them, and the curving, creaking buildings that stretched like glass ribs around the streets. 

He shuddered, looking down from the skyscrapers just in time to feel his prosthetic catch on a crumbling gap in the sidewalk. Miles grabbed the sleeve of Waylon’s jacket before he could hurtle forward; it may have only been a few days, but Miles’ reflexes had already caught up to Waylon’s clumsiness. 

Waylon took a minute to get his bearings. He flinched when a passerby brushed against him and bumped hard against Miles’ side. 

Miles stopped and patted his back encouragingly, stiffening but allowing Waylon to grip his sleeve as they tried to resume a normal walking pace. Waylon’s trembling vibrated up his arm. 

“Look, I’m sorry we had to come out here, but I can only eat Chinese takeout so many times in one week. You didn’t have to come along,” Miles sighed. 

Waylon winced and tried to form an apology before he was halted by the thin smile at the corners of Miles’ mouth. 

“…thanks for coming with me, though,” Miles said.

Waylon’s shoulders fell with relief. He tried to return the pleased expression, but from the expression of alarm on Miles’ face, it hadn’t worked.   
Suddenly all of the city noise had crashed in on Waylon, and in that panic he pulled Miles’ jacket closer to him. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting himself be guided and trying to pretend there was no one else on the street. 

_Just me and Miles, walking to the store. In silence. Calm. Quiet._

The darkness behind his eyelids only made the roaring din of everyday city noise swell to an unbearable crescendo in his head. Waylon gasped with the painful way his heart juddered against his sternum. 

_Anybody could be out here, and I’d never know. Murkoff agents, murderers, Gluskin, surrounded by the quiet malevolence of human beings who only wanted to hurt-_

Miles looped his arm through Waylon’s and pulled him in closer. “There’s really nothing to be afraid of,” Miles said, “I’ve lived here a long time, you know. It’s not that bad. It’s safe. You’ll be okay.”

“Safe,” Waylon whispered to himself. He still didn’t open his eyes. 

Miles steered them down a wide alley, shadowed by the tenements on either side and devoid of any other people. Waylon was dizzy with how his held breath came rushing out of him. 

“S’ a shortcut anyway,” Miles mumbled. 

Waylon kept his eyes opened and focused on the ground in front him the rest of the way. 

The little grocery store’s light-up letters hung dangerously akimbo from the entryway, making a rusty squeal with each passing breeze. Inside, Waylon idled behind while Miles started a soldier-like march through the cramped aisles, grabbing things seemingly at random. 

He snuck to the front counter while Miles stared with suspicion at a pyramid of ramen packets. 

“Uh, hey….could I get a carton of uh, Lucky Strikes?”

He had a fistful of money halfway to the clerk’s hand when a shopping basket clattered loudly on the counter in front of him. Coins tinkled like wind chimes as they scattered across the counter and onto the floor as Waylon jerked away.

“Aw hell Park, for me?” Miles grinned and stopped to grab Waylon’s wallet from where he’d dropped it. He frowned briefly at the wallet’s contents before handing it over. 

Waylon pocketed his wallet and handed Miles the cigarette carton. “Y-y-yeah, yeah…sorry for the cloak and dagger. I um, wanted to pay you back, and I didn’t think you’d let me.” 

“Well, you were probably right about that. But…thanks.” Miles tucked it into his satchel of groceries and threw it over his shoulder. “Ready to go?”

-

They were quiet on their way out and down the deserted alleyway. 

“Cute kids,” Miles said, staring straight ahead.

Waylon’s head snapped to look at him, wide eyed and feeling cold spread from his stomach to his limbs. He hissed breath in through his teeth and tried to ignore the way the question prickled behind his eyes. 

Miles cleared his throat. “Pictures. In your wallet.”

“Yeah…thanks, I guess.”

“What’re their names?”

“Lynn and Cassidy.”

Miles rolled his eyes. “Kind of old-fashioned if you ask me.”

Waylon tried to smile and shrugged.

“Sorry to bring it up,” Miles said, after a few tense minutes. 

“Cassidy wants to make robots when he grows up,” Waylon said- almost too quiet to notice at first. “Lisa always joked about him trying to outdo me with the programming thing.”

“What’s Lynn like?”

Waylon turned to inspect some graffiti on a piece of metal grating. Miles pretended not to see the tears that trickled down against his lips. 

“I guess I’ll never get to find out,” Waylon said, “he’d just turned two when I left.”

“…Sorry, Way.”

Waylon laughed in a harsh bark. “It’s for the best, right? Lynn’s young enough to forget I was ever there. I wish they could too, Lisa and Cassidy.”

“I-I’m sure they don’t think-“

“Seeing them after, it was just…” He rubbed his eyes angrily. “It was like they were looking at someone else. Someone who scared them. They looked like the police had grabbed a man off the streets and pretended he was their dad, their husband.  
They stayed with me at the hospital, but…”

Miles sidled up to Waylon and placed a hand on his shoulder when his breath hiccuped.

“Sometimes, when she was talking to the doctor, I’d see Lisa turn and look at me like- like she was looking at a monster. Even before the lawyers and the police and the feds - she looked at me, and she knew that I had done awful things, that I’d gone somewhere she was- was disgusted by, terrified of. Knew I was unfixable. When they did fill her in on what had happened, what kind of a ‘psychological liability’ I might be, I don’t think she was even surprised.”

The sound of their shoes crunching the damp gravel echoed through the alley. 

“That…must have been really hard,” Miles said finally. 

“Lisa mentioned…she mentioned that they’d thrown you straight into a psychiatric care facility,” Waylon said, cocking an eyebrow.

Miles snorted and scuffed his boot against the ground. “Yeah. That surprise you?”

“I guess not.”

“I think they were just pissed off at me, is why. Apparently I knocked out like, five state police before they tranquilized me.”

“So they didn’t keep you long?”

Miles stiffened, his hands balling into fists in his pockets. “I uh…yeah, probably.”

“Probably?”

“I don’t really remember, ok?”

Waylon put his hands up automatically at the sharp tone and nodded, sidestepping away slowly. “Sorry.”

Miles sighed. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, I shouldn’t have-“

“Yes, Waylon, being an asshole _is_ my fault.” 

Waylon sounded as though he were about to respond, but partway through he went wide-eyed, making a small choking noise in the back of his throat.

“Way? What’s wrong-“

Miles grit his teeth as he realized what he was looking at- someone large and dressed in black standing behind Waylon, holding a thin knife to his neck.

“Don’t move,” the stranger rasped.

Miles put his hands up, trying to will some courage into Waylon through eye contact. He hated himself for not noticing someone sneaking up on them, for not being more suspicious about the dark places that dotted the alley, for taking them through it at all. 

He hadn’t expected to feel anything but angry- this was nothing, Miles had escaped threats that had eroded away bits of his soul- but a tendril of fear had crept in with the wheeze of Waylon’s breathing. 

“Just take this and get out,” Miles said, throwing his wallet at the mugger’s feet. The man didn’t move.

“What?” Miles snapped, “It’s a bunch of money, okay? Take it and leave!”

Waylon swayed and stared at Miles with wide, eerily unfocused eyes. He was whimpering something that Miles couldn’t understand. 

“What else?” the man growled, jerking Waylon’s arm for emphasis. Miles thought he could hear him hiss out a jumble of prayers. 

“For fucks sake, I gave you all the money we had, okay? Put the knife away and get the fuck out of here!”

The man kicked at Waylon’s metal leg, forcing him to crumple downward and jamming the knife hard against his neck. Blood beaded along his skin underneath the blade, reducing Waylon’s shouting to a panicked gurgle. 

Everything flashed in pulses of buzzing white and Miles felt the same sensation from his nightmares- something huge and airy slamming into his body, like he was drifting and breaking apart and tearing through the fabric of reality itself. 

He could sense the dull reality of the mugger’s neck clenched in his hands, but the image was like a kaleidoscope, spinning through more information than he could make sense of. He saw Waylon, scrambling backward, heard the wet hissing coming from the body in his grip. He imagined the spine underneath that flimsy meat disintegrating in his hands, hot chunks of him coming apart-

And then Waylon screamed, and reality snapped sideways like a tense rubber band. 

—

Waylon wanted to remember the exact point everything had changed so violently, but his head spun with fear. He traced the shallow line sliced into his neck with hands that shook so badly he nearly knocked his glasses off. The world had gone from a hot, suffocating panic that preceded his imminent death and then-

_Then what happened?_

Miles happened. Miles had lunged forward, making a sound Waylon couldn’t identifu. There was no way what he’d hear qualified as yelling, much less as human. It was more of a deafening, buzzing roar, like a swarm of hornets had descended onto the mugger from above.

“Miles, where are you,” Waylon gasped, hand pressed to his sternum as though he could physically still the sickening speed his heart was beating with. 

He thought it had stopped when he saw Miles. Or, the thing that now occupied the space where Miles had been a moment ago. It was like squinting through a cloud of ash, swirling constantly in place. Its’ incorporeal arms were outstretched, farther than arms should reach, locked tight around the mugger’s neck while the man’s face turned a bright purple.

They floated there, like a mobile rip in reality, and all at once memory slammed into Waylon. 

He couldn’t breathe, doubled over and clawing at his chest like he force air in. It felt like ages before he could take in a painful gasp and when he finally did he screamed until he started to choke. 

The cold marble was under his hands again, Jeremy Blaire’s warm breath against his cheek, the spark of burning pain as the knife sank into his stomach. Waylon doubled over in the alleyway and vomited, staring at the inhuman thing wringing the life in a stream of blood from that stranger’s nose. His mind reeled backward, drowning in memories of fear, pain, and something very much like black ash, a cloud of humming insects that sent a rain of hot gore showering down on Waylon. 

“Stop!” Waylon shrieked, “stop it, stop it!”

He cradled his head in his hands, lungs aching with the screams he couldn’t seem to quell, yelling, “Stop it, stop it, stop it-“

The sound of a body hitting the ground forced Waylon back into his present. 

He was actually relieved to see the man who’d attacked him alive and sobbing as he crawled and stumbled out of the alley. The thing was standing there- hovering there?- the holes of its’ eyes fixed on Waylon. 

He would have vomited again, felt the gorge singeing at his throat. Instead he stared back, trying to dig through the layers of living static and find Miles. He couldn’t run like he’d wanted to, couldn’t leave without him. 

“M-Miles?” 

The cloud shivered and shrank at the sound of his voice. Waylon stepped forward.

“Miles? Is-is that you?”

The thing moved towards him, shedding its’ impossible layers until Waylon could see Miles underneath. He was hazy and indistinct, like Waylon saw him through a broken camera lens; his eyes glittered a uniform black and being near him made Waylon’s teeth itch. Miles didn’t do anything- he just stood there, unsteady, as bit by bit the buzzing horror sloughed off of him. 

Waylon reached out only to snatch his hand back, repeating that cycle four times. He couldn’t bring himself to touch this new variation of Miles. 

He tried again, closing his eyes and focusing on the mounting panic that someone would find them there and lock them up like monsters to override the unwillingness to come closer. It worked. 

He was near giddy with relief when he made contact with Miles’ solid wrist. 

“We’ve got to go,” Waylon squeaked, tugging at him. 

Miles followed, moving more steadily and quickly than expected. Waylon’s skin crawled where they touched and he broke into a run, stumbling on his bad leg. He just wanted to get to the apartment. 

—

By the time Waylon shoved Miles into his apartment, he was almost normal again, save for the blackened stains along his hands and his impossibly blown pupils.

He didn’t say anything. He just stood with his arms limp, staring at Waylon like he he was waiting for directions. 

As soon as the door had slammed behind him, Waylon made sure there was at least one large piece of furniture between him and Miles at all times. He clung to Miles’ couch, trying to avoid eye contact. 

“Miles, what the fuck is happening?” His voice cracked as relief and lingering horror washed over him in confusing tandem.

Miles turned and blinked.

“Say something, do something! Stop this!”

Miles lifted an arm- heavily, as though he were moving underwater- and reached towards Waylon. His mouth worked noiselessly, expression lifting from slack indifference to concern.  
Waylon stumbled backwards.

He watched as Miles’ legs gave out under him, dropping him into a boneless heap by the coffee table.

—

The sound of the ticking clock in the kitchen filled the small apartment.

Waylon thought he should pick himself up and maybe put the television on for background noise, but he couldn’t will himself out of the corned he’d huddled into. 

Not that background noise would really be any help. He needed an exorcist, a priest, a S.W.A.T. Team- he needed those Murkoff documents they had taken from him. The situation was familiar to him in a way he’d prayed to never have to remember again. 

_The Morphogenic engine._

He closed his eyes to remember the way the machine had hummed behind the glass. He’d practically memorized portions of the code- and of course, he’d learned pretty quickly what it did, though he hadn’t been too sure on what it was trying to create. He’d heard rumors from just about everyone with a clearance high enough to mop the engine room floor, but given the fragile state of most of their “patients”, he hadn’t given those whispered horror stories much credence. 

It wasn’t until the instant that Jeremy Blaire’s blood pattered to his face like a warm rain that he really believed in the Walrider. 

Waylon’s cadre of therapists had gone to great lengths to assure him that what he’d seen had been an elaborate hallucination. An understandable hallucination, of course, given the depths of his trauma. Even if he’d never accepted that it had been a hallucination, he had managed to push the incident into a dark area of fear and acceptance that he tried to not to touch. There were more pressing things to wake up screaming about, right? Like Eddie Gluskin’s unnaturally cool hands against his naked skin.

All that work ignoring the possibility of the Walrider, undone the moment he’d seen a deranged criminal dangling and choking from that same malevolent force. 

Miles chest rose and fell steadily, blood spotting the floor around his face like an incomplete halo from his mouth and nose. Waylon figured he ought to pick him up and put him in bed, but he froze whenever he got within a single step of him. He was held hostage by the image of Miles waking up, dissolving and swirling into something incorporeal that would screech and tear Waylon’s throat out. 

The blood was starting to concern him, though. Waylon took a deep breath and hauled Miles up by the back of his shirt. It was a mixed blessing and concern that Miles didn’t so much as stir. How long had Waylon just been sitting there, staring? It must have been a while; the blood trickling from Miles had become…considerable. 

Almost fifteen minutes and twice that many broken bottles later, Waylon rolled Miles’ limp body onto the bed. He tucked the blankets around him like he might spontaneously catch fire at any point. 

He couldn’t feel his fingers or toes through the buzz of adrenaline. Miles’ flinty black eyes peered out from the backs of Waylon’s eyelids whenever he pressed his fingers to his temples, lost and frightened and alien. 

“Is this permanent?” he asked quietly. “Are you coming back?”

Waylon went to the sink to wet a rag with warm water. 

“It’s just Miles,” he said under his breath, perching on Miles’ nightstand. “This is just Miles, and he’s not going to hurt you.”

_Probably._

He cursed under his breath, rolled up the rag and pressed it to Miles’ forehead with shaking hands. Heat radiated from Miles like an overworked computer tower.

“He didn’t hurt you, right? He could have hurt you and he didn’t.” 

Waylon dabbed at the scrape on Miles’ bruised cheek.

“He’s not going to hurt you.”

The thought didn’t stop Waylon from flinching every time Miles exhaled.


	4. Blackout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waylon meets his second-or-third worst nightmare in the not-so-flesh. Miles handles it poorly.

Miles was surprised to recognize the water damage on his bedroom ceiling when he woke. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting- an alleyway? St. Peter’s gates?- but the air rushed out of his lungs in pure relief.

Shit. His lungs ached. Everything ached, radiating pain from his core and throbbing in his head. He lurched out of bed, the features of the room blurring into an impressionist painting around him.

“Waylon?”

He could have sworn he’d been with him…somewhere…before he’d blacked out. Waylon could tell him what had happened.

Miles touched his nose and felt the blood dried there. Memory dropped like a weight in his chest: they’d been walking, they’d been in the alley-

His knees buckled and pitched him forward into the doorway.

“Waylon!” He jerked the door open violently, catching himself as he fell forward into the living room. 

The last thing he remembered had been the knife to Waylon’s throat; that image repeated itself in a panicked loop. Had he somehow made his way back, alone? He thought about Waylon, left back in the alley, blood shining at his throat. Miles’ stomach lurched.

When the colorful blur of Miles’ vision settled, he saw Waylon sitting against the far wall with his knees drawn to his chest, and a baseball bat gripped white-knuckled in his hands. 

Miles opened his mouth to speak, and heaved his guts out onto the coffee table.

“Christ.” Waylon’s voice bubbled up from the background as though they were underwater. 

The coffee table was splattered with thick, black sludge. Waylon shivered and pulled his baseball bat closer. 

“Where’d you get that baseball bat?” Miles gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Waylon stared, unblinking. He reached a hand out slowly before snatching it back around the bat’s handle. “Miles?”

“Yeah?”

“Miles, it’s you?”

“Yeah,” Miles said, cocking his head, “it’s me.”

Waylon placed the bat gingerly on the ground and pointed a shaking finger at the soiled coffee table. “What the fuck?”

“No idea.”

“Y-you…you should maybe see a doctor about that.”

Miles laughed and dropped himself onto the couch. Waylon scrambled backwards, bracing himself against the wall.

“Don’t think I’d have a very good explanation for the doctor,” Miles said. 

He could hear Waylon’s breathing getting faster in the ensuing silence. By the time Miles stopped rubbing his temples and looked up at Waylon, the man had degenerated into unsurprising sobs. He took a deep breath in, drumming unevenly on his thighs.

“Way, I know you’re having a hard time right now, but, could you maybe fill me in on what happened?”

Waylon gulped in deep breaths and met Miles’ eyes. He opened and closed his mouth like a very sad trout.

“You-y-you-“

“Way?”

“You-YOU, YOU- YOU-“

“Waylon, deep breaths-“

“YOU-Y-YOU’RE- Y- WALRIDER! THE WALRIDER!”

Miles winced.

Waylon choked on his breaths, sputtering and wide-eyed. “ **Fuck** , why did you- the whole time?! You were the- the Walrider the whole time!” 

“Waylon, listen-“

“You didn’t think that was something **worth mentioning?** ” Waylon’s voice cracked.

“It wasn’t exactly something I expected anyone to **believe, Waylon!** ” Miles thundered, jumping to his feet and gesturing erratically. 

The motion made his head swim with mounting pain, his vision blurring so that he could barely see Waylon shrink in on himself with each word.

“I’ve been trying to keep myself **out** of the fucking asylum, if that weren’t apparent yet. Do you think letting anyone- **letting Murkoff** \- know that their stupid fucking plan worked is a great fucking idea, Waylon? Would you have even **waited** before calling the police, or the feds, if you’d known, Waylon?”

Waylon had crossed his arms to shield himself in a gesture that had become familiar. Miles stiffened and dropped his arms to the side.

“Waylon,” he sighed, feeling exhaustion sweep over him. He walked over to Waylon slowly, holding his hands out in surrender. He dropped to a crouch and gently placed his hands on Waylon’s shoulders until he had dropped his defensive position.

Waylon looked up at Miles with those big, cartoon tears, biting his lip as though he were afraid this gesture was an elaborate trick.

“I’m sorry, I- that was out of line,” Miles said. He let go of Waylon’s shoulders and sat down, burying his face in his hands to shut out the torment of the light. 

“You,” Waylon whispered.

Miles looked up. “What?”

“It was…it was you.”

“What was me?” Miles said, his voice rising with his anxiety.

Waylon’s response was flat. “Blair. You were the thing- you were the one who killed Blair.”

“Blair? Who’s Blair?”

“Blair, Jeremy Blair, when he- I was trying to get out, and Blair was there…and he stabbed me, and I was dying and then he- he was flying and then-“ Waylon clapped his hands together and mimed them bursting apart. “‘How’d it get out, no, please-‘ Blood. Lots of blood.”

Miles watched Waylon lapse into his robotic, detached retelling of the events and felt the cold familiarity of his nightmares echoed clearly with each word. 

“Waylon, that was you…?” 

Waylon seemed to look through Miles, tears dripping from his chin in fat drops.

“That was you,” Miles said, more to himself than anything. The faceless man, clutching his stomach and crawling for the open door- his face resolving into Waylon’s and fracturing apart in endless cycles. “It wasn’t just a dream.”

Waylon didn’t look at him, eyes unfocused and trained somewhere between the coffee table and the carpet. He was silently mouthing something that Miles couldn’t read, a hand pressed hard against his abdomen.

“You were bleeding, you were there when I got out, when I- with the Jeep-“ Miles dropped his hands to his sides, fearful to get locked in the memories, like Waylon. Miles thought he could hear him quietly sobbing, “Please, no,” over and over to himself. 

Miles was lightheaded, memories slotting into gaps he’d thought he’d have forever.

“I didn’t kill you,” Miles mumbled, “why didn’t I kill you? I killed everyone else.”

“You should have,” Waylon whispered.

“Way, don’t-“

“It should have been me, it should have killed me. I wasn’t supposed to make it out,” Waylon babbled, “no one was.”

Miles pushed off the floor and jogged into the kitchen, grabbing an available bottle of whiskey blindly and upending it into his mouth. The shock of the alcohol reverberated through his system, burning down through his toes. 

The sensation should have been as comforting as it was familiar, but instead the buzz crept through his skin like it was waiting for him to do something.

He took another swig, squeezing his eyes against the waking flashes of nightmare he’d been seeing every night- the way the man’s body (Blair’s body, he supposed) came apart like overcooked meat, the glare of the sun through the doors both alien and exhilarating as though it were the first time Miles’ had ever seen it,the panic and sickening white pain as his fingers were reduced to stubs, the guns, the bullets- 

Miles’ stomach pitched and he vomited a fair amount of whiskey into the sink. His instincts told him to run; he splashed cold water on his face, and replaced his recently expelled whiskey with a fresh draught instead. 

“Gotta get outta here,” he whispered, whiskey dripping down his chin, “Gotta…”

He turned, pulling at his hair. Waylon was stock-still in his vigil against the wall. Every now and then, the baseball bat jerked in his grip, as if he had just remembered why he was holding it. 

He approached Waylon slowly, shaking his shoulder gently and waiting for any kind of reaction. Nothing. At this point he would have taken a sound beating with the bat, if it would have gotten Waylon to wake up and react. 

Miles heaved him up, steering him to the couch and setting him down as though her were a particularly obedient automaton. He tilted Waylon’s head up to look at him, force some kind of response or recognition. There was an emptiness in the man’s eyes that brought a cold pang of nausea back to Miles.

Miles sighed, patted his pockets, paced a circle around the living room. Each breath he took seemed to make his chest feel tighter, and looking at Waylon seemed to make the sensation worse.

He shrugged on his worn leather jacket and threw the door open, giving Waylon one last uneasy look. 

“I’ll…I’ll be back,” Miles said, and swept out, locking the door behind him. 

—

Normally, Miles would never qualify the city as “quiet”, but the steady rain did wonders to drown out the urban night sounds. The steady “shush” of the downpour was all he could really hear.  
He tried to focus on that sound while he stumbled down the sidewalk, waving off a street-beggar and occasionally letting his hand reach out for the steadying, solid presence of the nearest wall.

Not that the weather was helping Miles’ swimming vision. If he hadn’t essentially memorized this exact walk home from Crosseyed Jack’s, he’d be on his ass in the gutter with every other person too drunk or homeless to have anywhere to go.

It was the feel of the iron railing and the familiar way he smashed his knee against the stairwell that let him know he was home. From there he could close his eyes- and he did, several times, to stop the way the walls spun around him- and make his way back to his apartment relatively unscathed. 

It was 2:30 A.M. and since he had left until then, he had managed to forget that there was anything upsetting or extraordinary about his life. 

He had forgotten about any broken little men he’d essentially abandoned to his empty apartment, and any leering, gaunt doctors that had called him “buddy”. He told himself this for as long as the alcohol kept those feelings inaccessible to him.

When his flailing hand managed to hit the light switch, however, the reality of Waylon lying limp on the couch brought as much back to him as his clouded mind would allow. It was just enough to make him physically ill.

Miles froze and swayed. Waylon still had the baseball bat clutched to his chest like a plush toy, breathing in uneven wheezes. He debated if it would be kinder to wake Waylon up, get him to let go of the fucking bat and set him up in Miles’ room like they had done before, but he remembered the bald terror in Waylon’s eyes when he’d looked at him, and Miles couldn’t get his hands or his mouth to move.  
He had at least enough sense left to know that staggering and mumbling at Waylon in the dark wouldn’t be much comfort. 

_Waylon probably wouldn’t want to see me at all_ , he thought. The idea sank to his stomach like a lead weight and he escaped to his room, falling face-first onto his bed. _I’ll have to call someplace, get him a room somewhere._  
_I’m a monster now_ , he thought. _Just another one of Murkoff’s fucked up mutants._

He closed his eyes and saw Waylon again, cringing away from him, and swallowed down some complex gradient of emotion that may have been identifiable at a more sober point of his day.  
As it was, he could only call it _sad_. Maybe _lonely._

Miles squeezed his eyes shut and let the heaviness in his body sink him into sleep.

—

“Please, god, not again,” Waylon whimpered.

He was aware that this outburst was off-script. When he’d really been here, he hadn’t said anything. Hot, gluey chunks of Jeremy Blair’s innards formed a hellish curtain over the open doorway, dappling the bar of sunlight that fell across the floor.

He was also aware that he wasn’t really there, that this wasn’t real, with the way time seemed to flow like a physical presence, too fast and too slow all at once. When he tried to scream, it caught in his throat until he thought he might choke. 

A shadow fell across the doorway, an imposing male figure blotting out the light. Waylon thought he saw Blair’s heart fall to the ground with a wet thud.

“Darling,” came a hissing, thick voice. 

Waylon felt cold and tried to shut his eyes. They wouldn’t shut. He could feel Eddie Gluskin’s hands on him, his naked legs, his stomach, gripping his arms until they bruised. His jaw clenched with a hissing, jittering sensation that seemed to steal over him. 

“I know you can stop this! You have to help me!” Eddie screamed, his hands everywhere, stroking Waylon’s cheek, his bloodshot eyes locking on him.

_Please, wake up, please, please…_

“I know you can stop this!"

“I know you can-“

Somewhere below him, Waylon heard the whine of a circular saw starting up, sending a pulsing cloud of black flies around him, and finally, he could scream.

—

Waking couldn’t stop Waylon from screaming.

The panic moved faster than his hands could identify the couch beneath him, or the glow of daylight through the windows. 

Someone held his arms, his shoulders, touched his face. He kept his eyes shut, afraid to see exactly whose hands they were. Afraid that against all possibility, they’d be Gluskin’s hands.

There was a humming that ached in his jaw, like the sensation of ripping velcro reverberating through his body. It felt distastefully familiar, and Waylon snapped his eyes open to see who was touching him.

It was the thing- the thing that Was Miles, but was also Definitely Not Miles. It was more human and less cloud this time, but trying to look at it and see its’ shape made Waylon’s eyes hurt.

He screamed again and scuttled away from it.

The Walrider- Waylon shuddered to even think that name- hovered in place, like it was waiting for him. Waylon’s first instinct was to run, fast and far away. Any minute, the Walrider would engulf him, and tear him to shreds. 

Waylon closed his eyes and waited for death to finally take him. 

A minute passed that had been as agonizing as an hour, but when Waylon opened his eyes, the Walrider still hadn’t moved. It just crouched there, in the vague shape of a human sitting on their knees.

Quiet tears ran down Waylon’s face. _It’s not just the Walrider though, right?_ He’d seen Miles come out of this thing once before.

“M-Miles?”

There was a pause where Waylon could see the thing cock its’ head, and then came the sensation of very real, physically present arms wrapped loosely around his shoulders. 

“Miles, it’s you, right?” he whispered.

Waylon reached up hesitantly, hovering a hand near the concentration of darkness that would have been an arm, and waited for his fingertips to brush something solid. Something to prove Miles was really there, and Waylon wasn’t just trapped with a monster.

The thing shuddered a few times, as if its’ very existence were blinking. Waylon watched, shuddering along with it, as it seemed to blink itself smaller and smaller, fading into the shafts of sunlight. His hand touched skin and the warm, bony ridge of a cheekbone, and jittered down to the contour of a chin. 

Then Miles was staring back at him, black stain draining slowly from his eyes and skin. Brackish looking tears tracked down Miles’ face, both of them shivering as he tightened his arms around Waylon’s shoulders. 

“Miles,” Waylon breathed, “Fuck, it really is you.”

Miles blinked hard, as though he’d just realized Waylon was there, clinging to him. He opened his mouth to speak, bringing a trickle of blood oozing from his nose. 

“Waylon,” he croaked, drawing his mouth into a strained smile. “You were…screaming…”

Waylon nodded, curling his fingers against Miles’ shirt. “I-I’m sorry.”

Miles hacked out a rattling laugh. “Glad to see…you’re okay then.”

Waylon pressed the heel of his palm to Miles’ chin and wiped at the blood gathering there. “Y-you-you don’t- you don’t look so good.”

Miles’ eyelids fluttered closed and he fell against Waylon’s chest, his dead weight driving the air out of Waylon’s lungs.


End file.
